Would People Say the Same about You?

            She walked home from school, the same way she had done for years. This day was different. While she was crossing the street a couple blocks from school, the brakes went out on an oncoming car. The car hit her, cracking her ribs. She bled out into her lungs. People on the street tried to help her. They even called paramedics, but they were too late. She was dead.

            At age fifteen she was very young. But when she was gone people discovered how much her life had meant. She had built relationships with the people around her. She wasn’t popular, but she would make friends with anyone who needed one.

There was a security guard who she got to know slowly during her time at school. When she saw him at school she greeted him politely Around Easter she handed him a card inviting him to church. During Easter he was not ready to step into a church, but after 30 years of not going to church he walked into a church for her memorial service.

As she left school the day she died the last person she had spoken to was a male friend of hers. She made sure she said “bye” to him that day because she had a crush on him. There was no way she could have known she wouldn’t see him again. After he found out she had died he thought back to that moment. He remembered the way she smiled at him like she wanted to say something, but resisted. She would not have had it any other way. She died and he remembered her as a good friend he could talk to. He wasn’t left wondering if they could have been something more, because the thought had never occurred to him. And it was never going to, but he would get to carry on with his life.

She never had a best friend. There were many people who would miss her friendship, but there was no one she meant the world to. More people were more shocked by what happened than upset. It was a wakeup call. A reminder of just how temporary life was. All the teenagers who had thought they were invincible had to reexamine their lives. When they examined their lives they found that they wanted to live a life more like hers. She was not famous and her death probably attracted more attention than her life. But she lived her loving on others above herself. People around her hoped that when they died others would say the same thing about them.